— on opportunities available in oil and gas sector

STRATEGIC Recruitment Solutions (SRS), a 100 per cent Guyanese recruitment and staffing company, has been training locals to grasp employment opportunities in the developing oil and gas sector.

The company, which is the brainchild of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kerri Gravesande-Bart, was created to provide staffing solutions to all sectors, particularly in the local oil and gas sector, where jobs are being created onshore and offshore.
“Our driving force is our passion to help Guyanese,” Gravesande-Bart said at the company’s launch at the Marriott Hotel on Friday.
She related: “With growing focus being placed on the involvement of Guyanese in the country’s emerging oil and gas industry, SRS-GY intends to play an integral role in helping to train and build the capacity of the local population.”
The strategy used by SRS is that immediate training is offered to candidates, both in professional management areas and technical skills training.

SRS already has a range of local and international partners, including the Ministry of Social Protection, Department of Labour; Guyana Maritime Administration; the University of Guyana (UG); Caribbean Surgeries Inc./Partners with ISOS (an ExxonMobil approved Medical Provider); and Falck Nutec Safety Centre, among others.
And, a quick scan of their online dashboard would show the jobs currently available.
“To date, we have placed 26 workers on two G-Boats vessels, launched by US marine transportation service provider Edison Chouest,” Kerri said.
The jobs obtained include cooks and sailors, and the collaborations the company has been able to forge, has shown the “true spirit of local content”, according to the woman.

“Our plan at SRS is not only to provide blue-collar workers, but also white-collar workers as well-always through an ethics-first, non-discriminatory and gender-balanced approach,” she said, adding: “We are extremely proud to be contributing to our country’s transformation using this strategy.”

TRAINING

A key component of the recruitment services offered by SRS, is that all potential workers are trained and certified. This is due to cognisance of the increasing demand for certification.
President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Deodat Indar stressed, that capacity building needs to be at the forefront of the developmental thrust in the local economy, particularly in preparation for the extractive industry.
According to him, a “sustainable pool of workers” is needed, which can be developed by fostering avenues for training and certification right in Guyana. Moreover, there will be a number of jobs created because of the extractive industry and there will be opportunities for growth, he affirmed.

For Dwayne Cameron, who is now employed as a lead chef on an offshore vessel, the training he was exposed to, through SRS, was very different from what he learnt at the Carnegie School of Home Economics.
“The emphasis of the training I received was on ethics and safety, which is very important for the work I have to do now,” Cameron shared.
To this end, Indar had remarked: “Offshore workers are a different kind of workers… they have to think safety, live safety and operate safety… [because] it is a different safety culture [offshore].”

Melica Britton who had previously worked on a cruise ship, remarked that the emphasis on safety is critical to working on those offshore oil vessels.
Stephen Moses who previously worked in the bauxite industry, Linden, has now geared himself to work on an offshore vessel
As a prospective sailor, he shared that he and his batchmates had to do the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) for Seafarers, and focus on first aid, survival at sea and security awareness on the boat.
“When you [are] on the boat, it ain’t got no police station you could call [and] no ambulance or hospital you could call, so you gotta train in all these areas,” Moses said. “But that’s just in addition to the other training you have to do for your actual work on the vessel.”

EXPANSION

While focus is being placed on training workers now to acquire these jobs, the company also intends on expanding to facilitate a knowledge transfer from persons who already possess the requisite skills.
“It is no secret that Guyana is a newcomer to the oil and gas industry; however, as a people we have always taken great pride in the value of hard work and dedication to confront and surmount challenges,” Directing Shareholder of SRS, Deon Vigilance said.
However, in an effort to expand the SRS pool of talent, he disclosed that the company has established a subsidiary in Texas, [known as] SRS-US.
This extension of SRS-GY will concentrate on attracting individuals with skill sets and the knowledge base that are currently unavailable in Guyana.

“Unlike many companies that have started overseas and subsequently partnered with local companies, SRS-US represents a Guyanese company that has extended operations overseas, with the sole purpose of talent acquisition, training and for the advancement of our local economy,” he said, noting, that “SRS will, and currently is, maintaining an unwavering commitment to first recruit locally.”
The ultimate goal of this expansion and new model, according to Vigilance, is to afford Guyanese with the rapid knowledge transfer.
He further disclosed that the subsidiary will be led by an unnamed person, who has 30 years of experience in the industry.